The Language of the Stars
"..."
Do Seon-ju nudged Cha Sun-hyuk, who was staring blankly into space.
"Huh... What?"
"What is it? What did they say?"
Sun-hyuk quickly snapped out of his daze.
His mind began to race.
"Hey. He got a perfect score."
"Whoa. That's great. Did he win the Grand Prize in the elementary division?"
"No."
"Huh? Ah, did he miss out on the Grand Prize because he's only in the fifth grade? Then did he get the Gold Medal for his grade?"
"No. The Grand Prize."
"Ah, right. Of course. The Grand Prize."
"Not... not the elementary division."
Seon-ju's eyes widened.
"The middle school division?"
Sun-hyuk shook his head.
"Ah! Then what?!"
"There's one more left."
Seon-ju tilted his head, his brow furrowing.
"No way..."
"Yes. The high school division Grand Prize."
"The... the high school sophomore division...?"
"A perfect score in the preliminaries. A perfect score in the finals."
Seon-ju's jaw dropped.
"A true prodigy... No, wait. He's way beyond just a prodigy, isn't he?"
Sun-hyuk nodded vigorously.
Then, he suddenly clapped his hands together.
The other graduate students, who had been secretly straining their ears to listen, jumped in surprise.
Sun-hyuk beckoned them over.
As if they had been waiting for this exact moment, the graduate students swarmed around him.
"Alright, what do we do now?"
"About what?"
"We have to win him over."
"Huh?"
"He only came by for one quick visit, and look. Look at how much this lab has changed."
Everyone's eyes went wide.
"Just imagine if a kid like that starts studying here."
A child who had completely captured the attention of the Dean of Natural Sciences—a man who was absolutely obsessed with securing top-tier talent.
"If we play our cards right this time, our department's research funding is going to skyrocket!"
"Oh!"
Sun-hyuk stared thoughtfully at the bookshelf.
"First, let's prepare some books. Something for elementary schoolers... No, wait. If he's that smart, we should probably get books meant for middle or high schoolers..."
"Should we... should we pick out some of our coolest astrophotography prints and organize them? To show him the next time he visits?"
"Oh, that's a great idea. Hey, where is our astronomical telescope?"
"It's probably gathering dust in the back of the storage room..."
"Go find it, clean it up, and set it up right in the middle of the room as a display."
"Yes, sir!"
"And everyone, take a shower. We can't have the place smelling like a locker room when the kid arrives."
"Yes, sir!"
"Take turns going to the sauna today. Seon-ju, you're coming to the bookstore with me."
"Understood!"
Though the lab was now sparkling clean, the real change was the unprecedented burst of energy that began to fill the astronomy lab—a place that had always been as gloomy as a perpetually overcast night sky.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Gu Byung-ook, the Dean of the College of Natural Sciences, widened his eyes.
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Rumors are already spreading like wildfire among the mathematics professors. It's the first time an elementary school student has won the Grand Prize in the high school division of the KMC. And with a perfect score, no less. There have even been a few small news articles published about it."
"Ha... Incredible. And what about the astronomy department?"
"For now, the department chair mentioned that the boy is planning to drop by soon."
"Ah! Really? Then I should also... No, wait. No. If I overstep again, he might get scared off and never come back..."
"Yes. When I spoke with his guardian on the phone last time, he seemed like quite a formidable man. Fortunately, the boy has shown an interest in astronomy, so it would be best to let him get comfortable with the university first, and then naturally guide him toward our gifted program..."
"Right. Have the department chair handle that. Make sure to coordinate well with the astronomy department."
"Yes, sir. Understood."
Dean Gu Byung-ook furrowed his brow.
Astronomy, huh...
It was unexpected.
When he had met the boy that day, he had assumed he would pursue either mathematics or the piano.
But thinking about it, astronomy wasn't a bad choice either.
After all, it was still under the umbrella of the College of Natural Sciences, so it wasn't as if he had wandered far.
At least it's not the College of Music...
Gu Byung-ook had dedicated his entire life to academia.
Because of that, he knew what true talent looked like.
He had seen plenty of so-called prodigies in his time.
Children who were good at advanced learning, children with excellent memorization skills, children who aced exams.
Those kinds of kids were surprisingly common.
But that boy possessed a talent on an entirely different level.
He had felt it with absolute certainty that day.
To think there was a child capable of pure inductive reasoning—a rare trait nowadays not just in Korea, but across the entire world.
Any scholar would feel the same desire: to personally water and nurture an irreplaceable talent that was just beginning to bloom, watching over them from up close.
Gu Byung-ook looked out the window, a warm, satisfied smile spreading across his face.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
It was an incredibly rare occurrence.
In fact, it might have been the very first time.
A pleasant aroma was wafting through the astronomy lab.
They had lit three scented candles, and the subtle fragrance of a diffuser filled the entire room.
It was actually so strong that it made his head throb a little.
"Hey, let's blow out one of those candles."
Sun-hyuk slowly scanned the lab.
Who didn't like a clean environment?
It was just that, up until now, there had always been things far more important than cleanliness. As the clutter piled up over the years, they had simply assimilated perfectly into the filth.
"Should we... play some music too? Like classical?"
"Oh! Great idea!"
Now that the place was actually clean, everyone seemed secretly pleased, their faces bright with excitement.
Instead of their usual stained hoodies and baggy sweatpants with stretched-out knees, they had managed to dig up and put on relatively neat shirts.
The only problem was that every single one of them was either plaid or gray.
Sun-hyuk was no exception.
"Seon-ju. Set up the telescope near the window anyway."
"But the view is completely blocked by the building next door?"
"Ah... Right. What about the snacks?"
"I basically grabbed everything I could find at the convenience store. I wasn't really sure what elementary schoolers like..."
"Isn't that dried fish snack a beer side dish?"
"Ah, well, if there are leftovers, I was planning to eat them later..."
"Sigh..."
Sun-hyuk clicked his tongue and turned away.
The more I look at this, the weirder it feels...
This was no longer a dreary shelter for the academically homeless.
It was now a cozy sanctuary of intellectual, warm-hearted adults exploring the mysteries of the universe.
"Let me repeat this one more time: do not overdo it and pressure him. Our only job is to naturally show him that astronomy is a fun, romantic field of study. Got it, everyone?"
"We will keep that in mind!" the graduate students replied with resolute expressions.
"What time is it? He should be here by now..."
Right then.
Knock, knock.
A polite, cautious knock echoed through the door.
In an instant, the air in the lab grew taut with tension.
Sun-hyuk cleared his throat, adjusting his voice, and plastered on the warmest, most benevolent smile he could muster.
"Yes, please come in."
Creak.
The door swung open, and the little genius boy they had been waiting for so eagerly—the savior who would skyrocket their department's research funding—finally stepped inside.
*
Cheol-jun blinked his round eyes.
The moment he stepped through the door, the artificial, sweet scent of candles and diffusers hit his nose. To be honest, he thought he preferred the lived-in, human atmosphere of his previous visit.
"Hello!"
Cheol-jun quickly bowed his head politely.
"Haha, hello. I'm the boy's guardian."
Hyeong-man, resting a hand gently on Cheol-jun's shoulder, greeted the researchers.
Since Cheol-jun would likely be visiting this place often in the future, he had tagged along to introduce himself.
Still, this was completely different from what he had heard from his tutor, Cha Se-young.
She had described it as looking like a homeless shelter.
But seeing how much effort they had clearly put into tidying up the place to welcome Cheol-jun, Hyeong-man was quite pleased.
He patted Cheol-jun's shoulder.
As he looked around, he spotted the most impressive-looking object in the room and spoke up.
"Whoa, Cheol-jun. Look, they even have a telescope over there."
Seizing the perfect opportunity, Sun-hyuk quickly gestured toward the telescope and began to explain.
"Ah! This is a Takahashi FSQ-106. It's a refracting telescope often called the ultimate 'photo-visual' instrument..."
It was, after all, the only piece of professional equipment in the lab that looked impressive enough to show off.
Even though it had been neglected and shoved into storage—meaning the state of the inner lenses was probably a complete disaster—the exterior had been polished until it shone.
Surely, an elementary schooler would go crazy for something like this—
"Oh? The data isn't up today?"
Cheol-jun spared only a brief glance at the telescope before turning his head to scan the monitors, tilting his head in confusion.
"Ah... Huh? Data?"
As Sun-hyuk stammered in confusion, Cheol-jun nodded naturally and continued.
"Yes. The SDSS data that was on the monitors when I came last time. After studying a bit and thinking back to what I saw, it seemed like the redshift values and photometry data were aligned... Are you not looking at that today?"
Sun-hyuk blinked blankly. The graduate students, who had fallen dead silent for a moment, began to whisper in a delayed wave of shock.
The SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey) was the most extensive and ambitious astronomical observation project in human history, aimed at creating a three-dimensional map of the universe.
Using a dedicated 2.5-meter telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, USA, it precisely scanned about 35% of the night sky. The lab had kept this data on their screens for analysis because they were currently locked in a fierce academic battle with a research team from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).
Photometry, spectroscopy, and even redshift?
These were terms they never expected to hear from the mouth of an elementary school student, leaving everyone utterly stunned.
"...Do you know what the SDSS is? And redshift?"
At Sun-hyuk's question, Cheol-jun grinned.
"Ah, I saw those names last time, so I looked them up in books and on the internet when I got home. It's about calculating distance by measuring how much a star's spectrum shifts toward the red end, right? When I took a quick look last time, I noticed a lot of the z-values were between 0.1 and 0.3. That means those galaxies are roughly 1 to 3 billion light-years away, right? At that distance, it seems like perfect data for analyzing large-scale structures. I didn't really understand what it was back then, so I just memorized it. I was hoping to see it again today..."
The whispering among the graduate students stopped dead.
Sun-hyuk stood frozen, his mouth hanging slightly open.
Seon-ju was the first to snap back to reality. He quickly sat down at the computer and grabbed the mouse.
"Uh, that... It's right here..."
The monitor flickered briefly, and then a waterfall of galactic coordinates and redshift values began to cascade down the black screen.
"Whoa!"
Cheol-jun's eyes sparkled as he leaned in close to the monitor, staring at it with intense focus.
Hyeong-man tilted his head, his brow furrowing.
What on earth is that?
Wasn't astronomy supposed to be about looking at stars and taking pictures of the moon?
"Whoa! Yes, this is it! The galaxy with a z-value of 0.158 here is almost right next to the 0.157 one that just passed, right? It's a tiny difference on paper, but when you actually calculate it, they're over millions of light-years apart. Right?"
Seon-ju stole a quick glance at Sun-hyuk.
Sun-hyuk nodded urgently, and Seon-ju moved the mouse as he replied.
"Ah, uh... Right. See, if you do this, the graphs pop up on the side... and if you zoom out on this scale..."
"Whoa!"
Cheol-jun's eyes went wide.
[RA: 14h 20m, Dec: +30°, z: 0.245...]
One screen was packed with digitized text and coordinates, while the adjacent monitor displayed bar charts and undulating line graphs fluctuating wildly based on those numbers.
On yet another screen, a highly intuitive 3D map showed millions of dots clustering together to form a massive cosmic web. Cheol-jun's eyes darted rapidly between the graphs, right ascension, declination, and redshift values.
He hadn't realized it while studying from books, but seeing it in real life like this was truly awe-inspiring.
"Whoa, when you zoom out, the power spectrum peak shows up perfectly! I thought they were just random dots, but if you calculate the two-point correlation function, they're arranged in a regular pattern based on distance, almost as if they made a promise to each other!"
Everyone blinked blankly at Cheol-jun's observation.
Against the backdrop of the soft, elegant classical music playing in the room, the sound of the graduate students swallowing hard cut in like an off-beat rhythm.
Hyeong-man had absolutely no idea what any of this meant, so he could only tilt his head in confusion at the sudden shift in the room's atmosphere.
"Wow. This is so cool. But what is the goal of looking at all of this?"
"Well... that is..."
Seon-ju glanced at Sun-hyuk, silently pleading for help.
He had no idea how to explain this simply.
Sun-hyuk quickly gathered his wits and stepped up beside the boy.
He realized he could no longer treat him like a mere elementary schooler.
Moreover, he wanted to give him an intuitive understanding of what they were trying to achieve through astronomy.
After all, introducing a bit of competition would make it far more exciting.
"We're currently locked in a battle with the guys at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). To put it simply, we challenged their theory, but they're completely ignoring us right now. The general public has no idea, but it's a Korea-Japan match that happens behind the scenes."
"A Korea-Japan match?"
"Well, losing to Japan always leaves a bad taste in your mouth, doesn't it? Honestly, in terms of scale, we're like an egg throwing itself against a boulder, but we're desperate. Especially since it's Japan."
"Why?"
Sun-hyuk blinked.
Do kids these days not care about the Korea-Japan rivalry?
Cheol-jun tilted his head as he studied Sun-hyuk's expression.
He hadn't properly studied history yet.
Come to think of it, whenever his father, Jaegang, talked about Japan, he had used rather hostile terms, sounding quite antagonistic.
Cheol-jun quickly read the room.
"Ah, so it's a match we absolutely have to win?"
"...Well, yes."
Cheol-jun turned his gaze back to the monitor.
"What are we supposed to find in there?"
"Well, you see..."
Seon-ju stepped aside, and Sun-hyuk took his seat, beginning to move the mouse.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"How absurd."
Professor Sato Kenichi, head of the Cosmic Evolution Lab at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), scoffed as he scrolled through Seohan University's counter-argument on his tablet screen.
The screen displayed a neatly organized argument from the Seohan University team regarding "redshift correction errors due to weak gravitational lensing around galaxy clusters." To Professor Sato, however, it looked like nothing more than the desperate struggles of a cornered beast.
"Professor, the Seohan team claims they discovered a fine filamentary structure of dark matter that our team missed in their analysis of the SDSS DR16 data. They are making the absurd claim that this is the real cause of the observed gravitational distortion."
Tanaka, an assistant professor, chuckled as he spoke, and Professor Sato shook his head.
"Tanaka-kun, data analysis is ultimately a battle of equipment precision and observation time. Our team has high-resolution spectroscopic data obtained from monopolizing the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii for an entire week. A Korean research team merely playing around with publicly available SDSS raw data finding an error in our data? This is nothing but a childish tantrum from people who don't know their place. To think we have to respond to this... Ha."
Sato pointed to the complex margin of error displayed on his monitor.
"This 'fine structure' they claim to have found is nothing more than equipment noise mistaken for actual data. It's an error that could never be detected with the kind of facilities Seohan University has. Besides, even if they had the data, do they even have the manpower capable of executing such flawless inductive reasoning? Who was the lead researcher over there again?"
"Uh, a man named Cha Sun-hyuk, who used to be a postdoc at Leiden..."
Professor Sato furrowed his brow slightly.
It was a name he had heard somewhere before.
"Ah, Cha Sun-hyuk? That fellow was quite reasonable back when he was in the Netherlands... Why on earth did he crawl back to Korea... Tsk."
The other researchers in the lab, who had been listening to their conversation, let out light chuckles.
They believed the battle was already won.
The gap between the authority and cutting-edge observation equipment the Japanese research team possessed and the state of Korean astronomy was not something that could be bridged by mere data analysis and a few lines of logic.
"Just give them a half-hearted response and ignore them. At the international conference this summer, we will prove to the entire world just how flimsy their house of cards really is."
"Yes, Professor!"
Taking the tablet, Tanaka grinned and turned on his heel.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Hyeong-man, holding the steering wheel, stole a glance at Cheol-jun.
"Hey, Cheol-jun?"
"Yes?"
"Have you read up on Korean history at all?"
"Ah..."
"Math and astronomy are great, but as a Korean, you should also know the history of your people."
"Are you talking about that Korea-Japan match they mentioned earlier?"
"Well, that's part of it, but there are also many great historical figures you can learn from."
"Okay! I'll start reading about it today!"
"Haha, good. Take your time. History and biographies of great men can be quite fun. By the way, did you really have that much fun today?"
Cheol-jun smiled brightly.
"Yes!"
"Alright, then that's all that matters."
Hyeong-man smiled warmly and stepped on the accelerator.